Yes and no. I don't remember Iverson playing point. If my recollection is correct Wade played backup and he and Lebron were pretty effective on the second unit with more running.

Steph is primarily a pick-&-roll or drive-&-dish PG who works best with spot up shooters who can knock down an open jumper, but he's relatively less effective with the kinds of athletic players that olympics team was blessed with

Posted by bobs3304:

Posted by BlueSeats:


But KG and Marion were merely on their upward talent ascension that would be expected from players of their age as they climb from newbies to prime.

That's just an assumption. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's entirely possible (unless you watched Steph at every destination and can prove otherwise) that he helped them groom their offensive production...

Of course, but lets just break it down a sec.

You said "Like it's been noted, Steph helped guys like Marion, Googs, and KG to career offensive highs at the time Marbs was there.
I don't think that's just a coincidence."

With played with KG in KG's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons in the league at ages 20-22. Now would logic have anyone expect KG to have been better offensively as a 19 year old rookie out of highschool? Cause it would seem one should for your statement to have merit.

Same holds in Phoenix with Marion. Marion was in his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons at ages 22-24. Would one expect shawn to have been better offensively as a rookie at age 21?

Now even with Googs... You say Tom had career years with Steph. Eh, yes and no. Googs was 27 when steph arrived, smack in his prime, playing his maximum minutes to date. Should one expect peak performance under those conditions? I think so, and on quick glance we can say he did. However, if we look at his shooting percentages we see his FG% fluctuate between career highs and near career lows with his 3pt% decidedly at then career lows. so how much of Googs success is attributable to steph vs career prime? And while we see his fg% fluctuate at that time we note his FT% clearly at then career highs, markedly better than his norm, so it's not like his shooting touch was off.

So if you can make a strong case that Marbs had more of an effect than natural growth and maturation I'd love to hear it. After all, aren't growth and maturation always the explanations as to why guys K-mart and Amare got better after he left? It's gotta work both ways, no?

Posted by Bonn1997:

Yes and no. I don't remember Iverson playing point. If my recollection is correct Wade played backup and he and Lebron were pretty effective on the second unit with more running.

You might be right that Iverson wasn't officially labelled the PG by the scoring officials but he had the ball in his hand just as much as Marbury did or any other player. So he takes as much responsibility for not getting players involved as Marbury does.

Steph is primarily a pick-&-roll or drive-&-dish PG who works best with spot up shooters who can knock down an open jumper, but he's relatively less effective with the kinds of athletic players that olympics team was blessed with

Then that's as much the selection committee's fault and Larry's fault for not using Steph exclusively at SG with Wade and Iverson at PG as it is Steph's fault.

Same holds in Phoenix with Marion. Marion was in his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons at ages 22-24. Would one expect shawn to have been better offensively as a rookie at age 21?

Posted by martin:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Same holds in Phoenix with Marion. Marion was in his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons at ages 22-24. Would one expect shawn to have been better offensively as a rookie at age 21?

Just to play devil's advocate: The exact pattern is that Marion's #s improved each year with Marbury and he had the best scoring year of his career with Marbury. His #s then dropped when Marbury left and was replaced by Barbosa, Eisley, and Nash.

Marions numbers dropped cause of other reasons than Marbury coming/going.... playing out of position, Amare, etc.